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INDIAN NOTES 
AND MONOGRAPHS 




A SERIES OF PUBLICA- 
TIONS RELATING TO THE 
AMERICAN ABORIGINES 



TWO LENAPE STONE MASKS 
FROM PENNSYLVANIA 
AND NEW JERSEY 

BY 

AL ANSON SKINNER 



NEW YORK 
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 
HEYE FOUNDATION 
1920 



Ms 



This series of Indian Notes and Mono- 
graphs is devoted primarily to the publica- 
tion of the results of studies by members of 
the staff of the Museum of the American 
Indian, Heye Foundation, and is uniform 
with Hispanic Notes and Monographs, 
published by the Hispanic Society of 
America, with which organization this 
Museum is in cordial cooperation. 



TWO LENAPE STONE 
MASKS FROM 

PENNSYLVANIA AND 
NEW JERSEY 



ALANSON SKINNER 



SKINNER— LENAPE MASK 



LENAPE STONE MASK FROM PENNSYLVANIA 



TWO LENAPE STONE MASKS 
FROM PENNSYLVANIA 
AND NEW JERSEY 

By Alan son Skinner 



THE mask shown in pi. I, with its 
grimacing face and protruding 
tongue, was washed out by a 
freshet on the site of the Lenape 
or Delaware Indian village of Wyalusing, 
on the Susquehanna, a settlement destroyed 
by Continental soldiers under Colonel Hart- 
ley in 1778, because it had been a rallying 
place for Indian hostiles and Tories. 

The face of the mask shows evidence of 
having been made with the aid of both 
stone and metallic tools, and its lolling 
tongue is further evidence of its historic 
origin, since this feature is in imitation of a 
familiar type of the well-known Iroquois 
false-face. 



INDIAN NOTES 



6 



L E X A P E 



While the exact use to which this object 
has been put is in doubt, it is known that 
the modern Lenape Indians still possess 
wooden dolls which they style "guardians of 
health" and to which annual sacrifices are 
made to insure the welfare of the tribe 
They also believe in a being called "The 
Living Solid Face/' who controls the beasts 
of the forest and governs the chase. In the 
annual ceremony this personage is repre- 
sented by a shaman wearing a heavy 
wooden mask. Xo doubt this object from 
Wyalusing represents one or the other of 
; these deities, specimens of both of which 
are to be seen in the Museum of the Ameri 
can Indian, Heye Foundation. 

Only a few Lenape masks or heads of 
stone are known. The finest of these was 
found at Grasmere, Staten Island, Xew 
•York, many years ago, and is now in the 
Museum of the Staten Island Institute of 
Arts and Sciences. Another came from 
Trenton, Xew Jersey, and a third from 
Monmouth county in the same state. 

A crude face pecked in a bowlder (pi. n) 
was collected by Rev. Dr William R. 



INDIAN NOTES 



IB 12,8 



SKINNER — LENAPE MASK 




LENAPE STONE MASK FROM NEW JERSEY 



STONE MASKS 


1 

7 


Blackie on Minisink island in upper Dela- 
ware river, and was presented by him to the 
Museum of the American Indian, Heye 
Foundation. Another of the same type 
was found also by Dr Blackie and is in the 
American Museum of Natural History, 
New York City. 

Consult: Abbott, C. C, Primitive Industry, 
p. 394, Salem, Mass., 1881. Skinner, A., 
(1) Indians of Greater New York, p. 117, Cedar 
Rapids, Iowa, 1915. (2) Preliminary Report of 
the Archaeological Survey of New Jersey, p. 32, 
Bulletin P, Geological Survey of New Jersey. 
Trenton, 1913. Wilson, Thomas, Prehistoric 
Art, Annual Report of the U. S. National 
Museum for 1896, p. 481, pi. 52, Washington, 
1898. 




AND MONOGRAPHS 




c 0 ' yJa 




i 



DOBBS BROS. 
library binding 



ST. AUGUSTINE 
32084 




"r'^ARY OF CONGRESS 




